1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid container for storing a liquid supplied to a liquid consuming apparatus in a container body and being detachably mounted on a container mounting portion of the liquid consuming apparatus, a container holder for accommodating the liquid container, and the liquid container.
2. Related Art
Exemplary liquid consuming apparatuses capable of ejecting liquid droplets from a liquid ejecting head include an ink jet printing apparatus mounted with an ink jet printing head for an image printing, a device mounted with a color material ejecting head used to manufacture a color filter such as liquid crystal display, a device mounted with an electrode material (conductive paste) ejecting head used to form an electrode such as an organic EL display or a field emission display (FED), a device mounted with a living-body organic matter ejecting head used to manufacture a bio chip, a device mounted with a sample ejecting head which is a precise pipette, and the like.
In particular, since the ink jet printing apparatus causes relatively small noise and can also form small dots with a high density in a printing, the ink jet printing apparatus has been recently used for the many printings including a color printing. As a type of supplying a liquid to the ink jet printing apparatus, there is a so-called cartridge type in which the liquid is supplied from a liquid container storing the liquid to the liquid consuming apparatus. The cartridge type is configured so that the liquid container is simply attached to or detached from the liquid consuming apparatus in order for a user to exchange the liquid container when the liquid contained in the liquid container are completely consumed.
In this type of liquid container, a circuit board mounted with a memory element (IC) for storing information on a ink type, a amount of residual liquid or the like may be formed on an outer surface thereof. In this case, an apparatus terminal of the liquid consuming apparatus connected to a contact point of the circuit board is formed in a container holder of the liquid consuming apparatus mounted with the liquid container. When the liquid container including such a circuit board is mounted on the container holder, it is necessary to reliably connect the contact point of the circuit board to the apparatus terminal of the liquid consuming apparatus. That is, it is necessary to connect the apparatus terminal to the contact point of the circuit board so as to be electrically connected to each other.
Some known liquid containers and container holders include, for example, a container fixation structure for releasably regulating a movement of the liquid container in a pulling direction of the liquid container in cooperation with an apparatus fixation structure formed in the container holder as a mechanism for firmly fixing the liquid container to a predetermined position of the container holder (for example, see Patent Document 1).
The container fixation structure includes a guide groove for releasably regulating the movement of the liquid container at a position opposite to an insertion direction of the liquid container in cooperation with a locking pin of the apparatus fixation structure disposed in the container mounting portion when the liquid container is mounted in the container mounting portion against an urging force in the direction opposite to the insertion direction.
When the liquid container is fixed to the container holder, the liquid container is inserted into the container mounting portion, further pushed against the urging force in the direction opposite to the insertion direction by a slider member, and then a pressing force is released, the locking pin of the apparatus fixation structure is moved to a lock position of the guide groove and the liquid container is fixed.
In addition, when the liquid container is detached from the container holder, the container is pushed into the container mounting portion so that the locking pin is moved to a non-lock position of the guide groove. Accordingly, when the pressing force is released, the container is urged so as to be taken out in the direction opposite to the insertion direction by the slider member.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2005-88575
The known liquid container realizes a reliable connection between the contact point of the circuit board and the contact point of the liquid consuming apparatus by forming the circuit board in the vicinity of the apparatus fixation structure. Specifically, when substantially rectangular flat liquid containers are arranged in a direction (hereinafter, referred to as “vertically positioned”) in which a pair of flat largest surfaces are perpendicular to a vertical surface, the circuit board is disposed on a side surface and the apparatus fixation structure is disposed on a lower surface close to the side surface. That is, the circuit board and the container fixation structure are formed on two surfaces which are near the outer surface of the container and are perpendicular to each other.
Recently, however, as the number of the liquid containers increases in order to improve printing quality, the liquid containers have been configured so as to be arranged lengthwise with high density.
However, the circuit board and the container fixation structure are formed on the two right surfaces of the container which are perpendicular to each other. Accordingly, when the known liquid containers are lengthwise arranged, for example, in this structure, gaps are normally interposed between the adjacent liquid containers in order to dispose the apparatus fixation structure. For this reason, the containers cannot be arranged with the high density.
Alternatively, when the apparatus fixation structure is separately positioned, positioning precision of the contact point of the circuit board deteriorates. Accordingly, since the apparatus terminal and the contact point of the circuit board are easily separated, good electrical connection may not be obtained.
Recently, as a size of the liquid container increases, an urging force has a tendency to increase in a direction opposed to an insertion direction of a slider member of the apparatus fixation structure. Accordingly, when the container body is detached from or attached to the container mounting portion, the liquid main body may strongly rushes out from the container mounting portion.